Now this is one to ponder. This year, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Barack Obama, president of the United States. The prize has been given to both politicians and non-politicians alike, and Keith Lofstrom thinks its time to hand over the Peace Prize to a non-politician once more: Linus Torvalds.

If you want them to give the Nobel prize to a guy who created a Unix-like operating system kernel, you should give your vote to Linus (or perhaps to some of the *BSD developers). But if you want them to give the Nobel prize to a guy who has initiated the idea that all software should be free for everyone to use, to share, and to modify, then RMS is the man you should give your vote to.

But if you want them to give the Nobel prize to a guy who has initiated the idea that all software should be free for everyone to use, to share, and to modify, then RMS is the man you should give your vote to.

He's also the man you should give your vote if you want the Nobel Prize given to someone who picks and eats stuff from his feet during public lectures:

That would be great as they are two figures who together embody the positive aspects and character of open source software.

Personally, I approve of someone connected with FOSS being nominated. Apart from the good that GNU/Linux has done the world, FOSS development communities have been an intriguing and admirable example of international cooperation.